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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



E S SAYS 
I-XXX 



ARTHUR SEARLE 

V 




FOR ' SALE ' BY 

THE • HARVARD • COOPERATIVE • SOCIETY 

CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS 

1910 



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COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY ARTHUR SEARLE 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



©CI.A2780i: : : 



CONTENTS 



I. Introductory 1 

II. The Use of Language .... 3 

III. Existence 4 

IV. Consciousness 7 

V. Similarity 12 

VI. Classification 15 

VII. Inference 19 

VIII. Mind and Matter .... 22 

IX. Reality 26 

X. Identity 28 

XI. Personification 32 

XII. Space and Time 34 

XIII. Space and Time 36 

XIV. Space and Time 39 

XV. Space and Time 40 

XVI. Space and Time 42 

XVII. Space and Time 46 

XVIII. Causation 49 



iv CONTENTS 

XIX. Free Will 51 

XX. Ethics . 55 

XXI. Ethics 58 

XXII. Ethics 64 

XXIII. Pessimism 67 

XXIV. Hypotheses 71 

XXV. Testimony 75 

XXVI. Testimony 79 

XXVII. Immortality 82 

XXVIII. Religion 87 

XXIX. Providence 91 

XXX. Mental Diversities .... 94 



ESSAYS 



ESSAYS 



Writing is certainly a harmless and unob- 
trusive occupation for old age; but it some- 
times leads to printing, the expediency of 
which is always doubtful. If what has been 
printed is never read, there has been a waste of 
labor and materials; if readers are found, their 
time may be wasted. For this, however, they 
must be chiefly responsible. The responsibility 
which the writer cannot escape should warn 
him at least to be brief, and, in particular, to 
omit all apologies. 

An opinion occasionally expressed, in which 
I concur, is that men who have thought seri- 
ously may properly leave behind them some 
record of their conclusions, whether printed or 
not. If they think that they have made any 
discoveries which the world will be the better 
for knowing, they may state them at any time 
of life; this is perhaps most likely to occur 
while they are young. But if they merely 



2 ESSAYS 

intend to show how far they agree with any- 
existing opinions, they can do so to the best 
advantage at an age when fixed habits of 
thought combine with want of time for further 
changes to indicate the probability that their 
conclusions are final, so far as they are con- 
cerned. 

No pretence to originality is made in the 
pages which follow. But the thoughts ex- 
pressed in them are not mere repetitions of 
those entertained by previous thinkers: they 
result from independent reflection, and the 
coincidences with the work of former writers 
which will doubtless appear below are to be 
regarded as confirmations, not as plagiarisms. 

For the sake of brevity, my statements of 
opinion will frequently have the form of asser- 
tions, which must not be understood as claim- 
ing any authority, or disputing the right of 
others to believe differently. I am not arguing 
as an advocate, or deciding as a judge, but 
voting as a juryman or an elector upon such 
questions as I have had occasion to consider; 
while the neglect of topics which others may 
think equally fundamental will perhaps make 
my conclusions seem fragmentary and unsub- 
stantial. 



ESSAYS 



II 



On the present occasion, I am to attempt the 
expression of thought by means of language; 
and the question whether thought can be 
otherwise made distinct to ourselves or com- 
municated to others does not concern us for the 
present. It is generally admitted that lan- 
guage, like fire, is a good servant, but a bad 
master, and that it is especially likely to 
obtain an undue mastery in those discussions 
relating to the nature of our primary convic- 
tions which have always been interesting to 
civilized men, however imperfect their results 
may appear. The immediate object of lan- 
guage is to state facts and to express desires 
relating to the external world. Even this task 
it accomplishes rather vaguely, and its meta- 
phorical terms for our mental proceedings still 
further embarrass our attempts to discuss 
them. Metaphor and analogy may easily be 
carried too far, and may mislead us; so much 
every one is willing to grant. But he is also 
disposed to hold that his neighbor, and not he, 
has been misled. I shall not be able to prove 
my success in the control of language to be 



4 ESSAYS 

greater than that of others whom I may regard 
as carried away by their own words. 

The invention of new technical terms does 
little to make language a more satisfactory 
implement. Such terms may indeed abbre- 
viate our reasonings, but their validity cannot 
exceed that of the more familiar phrases which 
define them. Nor will it avail us to strive for 
precision of statement at the expense of per- 
spicuity. When we are to make an obscure 
topic more distinct to ourselves, if not to 
others, our language must not cast additional 
darkness upon what can at best only be dimly 
discerned. And yet we must not conceal a 
difficulty by words which, although simple in 
appearance, are really only denials, not state- 
ments, of the problems before us. How far it is 
possible to comply with such precepts for the 
use of language can be learned only by experi- 
ence. 

Ill 

All men will probably admit, as an indis- 
putable proposition, the assertion that some- 
thing is happening, going on, or taking place. 
But to obtain universal assent to this proposi- 
tion, we must introduce ideas which we are not 



ESSAYS 5 

yet ready to discuss, by limiting what happens 
to feeling, intention, and thought. Here many 
will add that they are incapable of separating 
this conception from another, which insists 
upon the existence of something which does 
not happen, but which feels, intends, and 
thinks. This incapacity, to my mind, is an in- 
stance of the control of thought by language, 
above mentioned; and the thinkers whom I 
follow maintain that the separation of the two 
conceptions is possible. Existence, then, to us, 
implies only what can happen, not what is. 

But a perfectly monotonous existence, like 
that which Buddhist doctrines are reported to 
describe as a state of final blessedness for the 
just, is not easily to be distinguished from a 
state in which nothing happens. Our notion 
of existence seems to require change, and this 
calls upon us again to anticipate the introduc- 
tion of a new topic, that of likeness and unlike- 
ness, which we may naturally wish to post- 
pone. 

If we are to use language at all, we must 
expect it continually to suggest to us complex 
ideas, for the discussion of which we are at the 
moment unprepared. It would be as useless as 
inconvenient to avoid phrases in which per- 



6 ESSAYS 

sonal pronouns occur, because we have not 
yet considered what personal pronouns mean. 
Words which imply change and time must be 
employed in any attempt to indicate still 
simpler subjects of thought, and frequent ref- 
erences to an external world will occur in a 
treatise the professed subjects of which are 
purely mental. Many, doubtless, will be ready 
to say that under such conditions no value can 
be ascribed to any conclusions relating to the 
foundations of our knowledge. All who think 
so are right in abstaining from the search for 
such conclusions. 

In my early years, I was once to some extent 
instructed as well as amused by watching a hen 
in pursuit of grasshoppers. Fixing her atten- 
tion on one particular grasshopper, she fol- 
lowed it until it had become too tired to go far- 
ther, regardless of all the others which sprang 
up between her and that which she was chasing. 
If we can succeed at all in the hunt for clear 
conceptions over the field of language, it must 
be by the temporary neglect of all but that 
which we are seeking at the moment. 

In the present case, we will endeavor to ex- 
clude from the consideration of the vague no- 
tion of existence with which we have begun all 



ESSAYS 7 

suggestions made to us by our own words, and 
to choose for ourselves that course of thought 
which best promises clearness and simplicity. 



IV 



The notion of parts composing aggregates, 
and aggregates composed of parts, appears to 
me to be less in need of definition by addi- 
tional notions than any other which I can dis- 
cover. This is the origin of all mathematical 
inquiry, and mathematics is commonly ac- 
cepted as a comparatively distinct body of 
thought. Our chosen terms are mutually de- 
pendent; to imagine a part we must also im- 
agine that which includes it, and to imagine 
an aggregate is to imagine something made up 
of parts. Possibly some may hold that this is 
equally true of thought and the thinker. In a 
certain sense, as will appear below, I can agree 
with them; but not as I conceive the state- 
ment to be usually understood. No argument 
upon the question seems practicable, and every 
one must decide it for himself. 

Existence, regarded as an aggregate, con- 
sists of parts, each of which may itself be 
regarded as an aggregate, and this process 



8 ESSAYS 

may be indefinitely continued. Here we obtain 
our first suggestion of the idea of an orderly 
universe, which will of course be continually 
recurring as we proceed. Can any interde- 
pendence of ideas appertain to a chaos ? Our 
minds, developed under a reign of law, may 
perhaps regard chaos as divisible into parts; 
but no such idea, and presumably no idea at 
all, can easily be supposed to originate in 
chaos itself. This, however, is a merely fanci- 
ful speculation, which must not be allowed to 
detain us longer. 

One part of existence is the present; the 
present, taken as an aggregate, may be inde- 
finitely subdivided, and this process ultimately 
results in the total extinction of the present, as 
every one perceives. To use a mathematical 
term, easily understood, the integration of an 
indefinite number of parts is requisite in order 
to constitute what we call a present event. 
Consciousness is a term too vague and general 
to allow us definitely to declare it equivalent 
to integrated existence; but disintegrated exist- 
ence cannot be regarded as conscious, and 
consciousness may be greater or less accord- 
ing to its degree of integration. In the language 
of mathematics, the term opposed to integra- 



ESSAYS 9 

tion is differentiation; but disintegration is an 
expression which is probably more generally 
intelligible. 

Memory, properly speaking, involves a re- 
cognition of the past, and anticipation a recog- 
nition of the future. If we regard consciousness 
as a compound of memory and anticipation, 
we must use these terms in a special sense, ex- 
cluding such recognitions. This will furnish us 
with the idea of a conscious present, composed 
of an unrecognized memory and an equally 
unrecognized, and probably less extensive, an- 
ticipation, like a wave about to break, and 
steeper toward the shore than toward the 
sea. 

In this view of the subject, consciousness 
may gradually diminish and finally disappear 
in disintegration, while we shall be unable to 
fix any distinct boundary between a conscious 
and an unconscious condition. Allowing our- 
selves here to admit the idea of an external 
world, we may imagine animals of various 
kinds to have various degrees of consciousness, 
without finding any line of ultimate separation 
between them and vegetables, in which we 
consider consciousness altogether absent; that 
is, we regard their existence as disintegrated. 



10 ESSAYS 

According to one school of philosophy, no 
animal but man is conscious; but this theory is 
generally taken for an unwarranted expression 
of the pride of human nature. 

On the other hand, a consciousness extended 
to embrace a past and a future eternity, so 
that everything shall be present, is no longer 
consciousness at all, however gradually we 
may regard it as approached. It is something 
wholly incomprehensible, which we may at- 
tribute, if we choose, to some supernatural 
power. 

Between these extremes of the infinitesimal 
and the infinite, but not far from the former, lies 
that world of finite consciousness within each 
of us, to which we will now return. It forms 
only a small portion, as we all practically 
assume, of an existence apart from any exter- 
nal world, but disintegrated and unconscious. 
The familiar and frequently employed illus- 
trations of this unconscious existence are the 
mental processes supposed to incite the rapid 
movements made to escape injury, or required 
in the performance of music, which are neither 
intended nor felt as separate actions. Only 
the general result is contemplated and per- 
ceived. 



ESSAYS 11 

The slight and imperfect integration here 
assumed as a condition of consciousness is 
more or less complete in varying circumstances. 
When unwelcome, as in the case of pain, it can 
at times be intentionally suppressed to some 
extent. " Cowards die many times before their 
deaths" in conscious anticipation; and the un- 
recognized anticipation of ordinary conscious- 
ness may possibly be modified by resolution, 
as it may be restricted by nature among the 
lower animals, as already noticed. So far as 
this is true, pain may be lessened or extin- 
guished. 

Unrecognized anticipation affords us a fur- 
ther illustration of the control of existence 
by order. We expect the actual condition of 
things to continue, in the absence of any sug- 
gestion to the contrary; an expectation which 
prolongs what we have called the present. In 
so far as this expectation is not justified by 
fact, consciousness may be suspended, which 
happens, indeed, during the rapid movements 
recently mentioned ; or may recognize an event 
as still to happen, not as present. Such recog- 
nitions obviously attend the feelings of indif- 
ference, desire, dread, or intention. 



12 ESSAYS 

y 

Memory, if recognized as such, involves the 
idea of repetition. This is a comparatively 
simple notion, like that of parts and aggregates, 
and provides us with a second step toward 
the formation of a mathematical system. We 
remember a sensation or perception in the 
present, without recognition of the process as 
memory. This unrecognized memory is after- 
wards repeated and then recognized. Subse- 
quent recognized repetitions may occur, and 
there may be repetitions of the recognition 
as well as of the memory, in any degree of 
complexity. The actual and historical basis of 
arithmetic is usually and reasonably referred 
to the recognition of external objects; but 
memories in a simpler form would apparently 
furnish such a basis, without the aid of any 
experience of the world without us. 

The question has been raised whether, under 
laws of nature differing from those which we 
know, two and two might make five. It may 
be partially answered by the remark that 
memory, as we now understand it, would then 
be superseded by some process in accordance 
with which a pair of events would not be 



ESSAYS 13 

remembered as a pair. But let us not wander 
from the consideration of what actually happens 
into speculations about matters beyond the 
reach of experience. 

Any event, however small a part of some 
aggregate, may itself be an aggregate of parts 
indefinitely numerous. Memory may repeat 
some of these parts without others; and, in 
the infinite complexities which are thus pos- 
sible, we have, I think, an explanation of the 
comparative vagueness of the ideas expressed 
by the words like and unlike. It is of course 
open to any one to say that repetition, to his 
mind, is as vague a term as likeness. Others 
may find it more intelligible. 

But however vague the notion of likeness 
may be, it still appears to involve another, that 
of universal order, which at this point we find 
forced upon us more decidedly than before. 
Any repetition suggests, without absolutely 
requiring, a necessary sequence of events, and 
accustoms us to an indefinite confidence in such 
a sequence. A given assemblage of infini- 
tesimal details, if repeated by memory, appears 
to demand a continuation by another conse- 
quent assemblage. Every repetition, however 
minute, is the repetition of such a sequence, 



14 ESSAYS 

when we resolve the repeated event into its 
infinitesimal elements. "Over the past not 
heaven itself hath power"; at all events, we 
feel as sure that what has happened is immu- 
table as we feel that what happens is real, 
and a remembered event presents itself to us 
as a necessary sequence. We may conjecture, 
but certainly without any thought of being able 
to prove, that memory and chaos are incom- 
patible. 

Perhaps it may be worth while to guard 
against the supposition that the foregoing re- 
flections are meant as an argument for the 
principle of universal order, which is properly 
neither a term to be defined nor a proposition 
to be demonstrated, but an instinct to be 
obeyed. It controls the conscious action of all 
animals to whom consciousness can be attrib- 
uted, and we may recognize its presence, if we 
choose, even in the unconscious efforts of vege- 
tation. It cannot be established by the work- 
ings of our minds any more than an engine can 
furnish the power by which it is driven. We 
have only an infinitesimal acquaintance with 
an infinitesimal part of the universe, and must 
not pretend to make general assertions about 
the whole; while any partial statement which 



ESSAYS 15 

we may find possible must be made under the 
control of tendencies unconsciously developed 
in us, among the effects of which are memory 
itself, as well as the indefinite sense of likeness. 
Any inquiry whether memory and likeness 
could be conceived as existing in the absence 
of that instinct which demands compliance 
with the order of nature would be an inquiry 
resembling that whether two and two could 
make five under a different system of natural 
law, and must apparently be equally futile. 

Different memories may appear as partial 
repetitions of one another, and to that extent 
the remembered events are alike. But as we 
neither know in the present nor remember in 
the past all the antecedents of anything which 
can happen, it is not requisite that the partial 
repetitions which we may observe should be 
succeeded by other repetitions as exact as 
their predecessors. Divergences will occur, 
which we recognize as evidence of unlikeness 
even in the portions of the remembered events 
in which the repetition seems most complete. 

YI 

There will probably be a general agreement 
in the proposition that classification, to be 



16 ESSAYS 

practically useful, must chiefly rest upon like- 
ness. It is true that voluntary, or intentional, 
classification may be purely arbitrary. But 
natural classification, in which language seems 
to originate, results from the perception of 
similarities. It would be impossible to have 
words assigned to all the infinitesimal events 
composing an existence; considerations of like- 
ness, and a resulting classification, must take 
place previous to the formation of even an 
impersonal verb. This would be true if lan- 
guage were to be used merely to assist internal 
thought, instead of as a means of communica- 
tion with others. Consider, for instance, the 
statement "It rains," regarded not as imply- 
ing an external universe, but merely as an ex- 
pression of an assemblage of sensations. The 
order of these sensations, as well as the sensa- 
tions themselves, must repeat many previous 
experiences, in order that the expression may 
have any purpose or meaning. Classification 
and language, as well as likeness itself, require 
as a necessary condition of their usefulness the 
assumption of an order of nature, however de- 
ficient in clearness the notion of that order 
may originally be. Dealing as it does with in- 
finities of infinitesimals, it cannot be expected 



ESSAYS 17 

to present itself definitely and distinctly to a 
finite mind, while it may still be a condition 
requisite for every action of which that mind 
is capable. 

Those who take part in any discussion con- 
ducted by means of language must have a suf- 
ficient agreement at the outset as to what 
language itself implies, or their time will be 
wasted. Two men may assent to a series of 
verbal statements, and yet, for want of such 
an agreement, may fail to draw from them any 
conclusion acceptable to both. Nor can the 
requisite agreement be obtained by a prelimi- 
nary discussion, every word of which may be 
variously regarded. So far as external nature 
is concerned, little difficulty is usually found 
in avoiding such perplexities as are commonly 
called metaphysical; but in dealing with those 
mental questions which seem at first most ac- 
cessible to our inquiries, we soon discover that 
we cannot hope for any general concurrence, 
and that we must content ourselves with a 
comparatively limited fellowship among our 
contemporaries. I am in no way entitled to 
criticize the opinions of others respecting the 
foundations of language, however widely they 
may differ from mine; and, at the same time, 



18 ESSAYS 

I must allow them to criticize mine as much 
as they please. 

A certain classification of classifications 
themselves, which has sometimes been re- 
garded as important, deserves some notice 
before we proceed. Some classes appear ab- 
solutely, others only partially, distinguishable. 
To those who admit the idea of permanent, as 
opposed to transient, existence; of being, as 
opposed to happening; there seems a perfectly 
definite separation between the two concep- 
tions. Numeration, too, as distinguished from 
measurement of quantity, presents us with a 
series of separate and distinct classes. On the 
other hand, the distinction between animals 
and vegetables, generally so clear, becomes 
vague in the lower forms of organic life. If 
we choose, we may regard this last distinction 
as one relating to our own sensations and 
thoughts, without reference for the present to 
any actual world without us. Certain other 
classifications, such as that of conscious and 
unconscious existence, or that of past and fu- 
ture events, may be regarded in either way, as 
we please. We may imagine degrees of con- 
sciousness, as we have seen, passing insensibly 
into unconsciousness; and the past is united 
with the future in the present. 



ESSAYS 19 

No further analysis of this subject will here 
be attempted than that suggested by the re- 
mark that absolute distinctions, usually at 
least, have an artificial character; they seem 
to be constructed by reflection rather than of- 
fered to us by nature. Moreover, we become 
aware of a constant tendency, as we study any 
subject, toward vagueness in distinctions which 
at first seemed clear, and toward the formation 
of suspicions that our efforts at classification 
are the struggles of the finite mind to reduce 
an infinite universe to its own standard. So far 
as this view is accepted, we may admit that 
language can never be made definite enough 
to be an instrument entirely satisfactory to 
us, and that our knowledge is not likely to at- 
tain that degree of precision which we natu- 
rally desire for it. Inspiration and revelation, 
as is known, are the means on which many 
depend for the gratification of this desire. 

VII 

Inference is a process referred by some to 
classification, by others to likeness, and by a 
third school directly to the unconscious recog- 
nition of natural law. Those who entertain 
the views of classification and likeness above 



20 ESSAYS 

proposed find these three systems practically- 
equivalent. 

Ordinary reasoning, as distinguished from 
merely formal and generally useless logic, is 
of course mainly hypothetical, and largely un- 
conscious. Whether conscious or not, it seldom 
rests on propositions of which we are so sure 
as to be thoroughly convinced of those de- 
rived from them. This is true even in mathe- 
matics, where the ultimate basis of our con- 
clusions, when we search for it, is found to be 
somewhat unsteady. Those who aspire to 
certainty must obtain it by force of will. 
Others regard this certainty as equally doubt- 
ful with the uncertainty to which they are 
content to resign themselves. 

Even the fundamental principle on which 
we have assumed all thought, language, and 
reasoning to rest cannot be stated, as has al- 
ready been granted above, in the form of a down- 
right assertion. When we make our return to 
it, after prolonged experience of its guidance, 
and try to understand clearly what we have 
been doing, it presents itself most frequently, 
perhaps, in the shape of a hypothesis the origin 
of which will be considered below; the hypothe- 
sis that if we knew accurately the present con- 



ESSAYS 21 

dition of the universe in all its details we could 
then be sure what would happen next. For 
practical purposes, it is better to say that so 
far as we do understand the present we are 
warranted in our expectations of what is to 
come, without pretending to any perfection 
of knowledge; and that even the little power 
which can be gained by observation is worth 
having. Just now, however, it is theory rather 
than practice with which we are concerned. 

It is no part of my present plan to set forth 
any theory of reasoning; but having recog- 
nized the possibility of such a process, as well 
as the power of classification and the sense of 
likeness, it becomes more practicable to em- 
ploy ordinary language in any desired discus- 
sion. Hitherto, every word which could be 
used has doubtless implied some theory, 
whether that which I have adopted or another; 
and these words must have frequently sug- 
gested processes of reasoning, because no other 
words were available, while at the same time 
no legitimate reasoning could be possible when 
the foundations of reason itself were to be dis- 
cussed. What these foundations are, every 
man has to decide for himself without argu- 
ment until some warrant for argument can be 



22 ESSAYS 

found. Men who are unconsciously at vari- 
ance as to what reasoning implies will vainly 
expect to convince one another of conclusions 
which they may imagine to be indisputable. 

VIII 

Our convictions with regard to the world 
without us must be derived from inference, 
unless we choose, as some will, to consider 
them intuitive, or, with others, to deny their 
validity altogether. In our dreams, we are sur- 
rounded by an external nature as real to us at 
the time as any other, which we still repudi- 
ate on waking, as a mere fiction of our own. 
It is a familiar remark that our waking lives 
may be dreams, for all that we can prove to 
the contrary. 

Assuming that we know something outside 
of the existence with which we began our at- 
tempted exposition of opinion, and assuming 
also that this knowledge results from infer- 
ence, usually unconscious, let us see what can 
be suspected with regard to the nature of the 
process. We may now return to the consider- 
ation of that attribute of consciousness above 
described as unrecognized anticipation, in 
which whatever is happening is expected to 



ESSAYS 23 

continue. The incessant failure of this expec- 
tation, combined with our unconscious assur- 
ance of the order of nature, may induce the 
conviction that there are more such trains of 
events than that to which the term existence 
was applied above; that there is something 
more to be known in the universe than the 
feeling, intention, and thought which were ori- 
ginally accepted as realities. 

Whether this speculation, for of course it is 
nothing more, is or is not admitted, it will 
doubtless be granted that we somehow become 
persuaded of the course of existences, inte- 
grated or not, in infinite number besides our 
own. Many of us insist on including in this 
persuasion substances which are, as well as 
events which happen; they must have matter 
without them as well as mind within. This 
view, if accepted, must be intuitive; it is be- 
yond the reach of inference. 

One assemblage of external events is of par- 
ticular importance to each of us, and now re- 
quires us again to consider the realities which 
we originally accepted. Feeling, in ordinary 
language, includes sensation and emotion. 
While we will still neglect many problems of 
classification here suggested, we must admit 



24 ESSAYS 

either that there is a clear distinction between 
these kinds of feeling, or, with some philoso- 
phers, that emotion may be resolved into sen- 
sation and thought. In either case, we shall 
find sensation appearing as our immediate 
means of communication with external nature. 
But we also find a special set of events inter- 
posing themselves between us and nature at 
large. The sensation of a flash of lightning, for 
example, is referred in the first instance to 
something which happens in the eye, and this 
again to something which happens in the 
clouds. We admit the nature of these occur- 
rences to be entirely unknown to us; all we 
know is the sensation itself; but most of us 
feel sure that both external events take place: 
Others, it is true, will deny their reality, and 
may go so far as even to refuse credence to the 
sensation. If we adopt the opinion of the ma- 
jority, we find, on further examination, that 
each event may be indefinitely analyzed into 
parts. As usual, wherever we look, we are con- 
fronted with an infinity beyond our mental 
grasp. 

We need not accept the abstract idea of 
matter as a necessity, before we can speak of 
our bodies as freely as we can of ourselves 



ESSAYS 25 

without stopping to discuss the meaning of 
personal pronouns. These bodies are so neces- 
sary to our recognition of other external objects 
that we take them with us into our dreams; 
at least, I do not know that any one dreams 
of being disembodied, and, if he does, I appre- 
hend that he cannot explain to us his sensa- 
tions in that condition. We dream, certainly, 
of being more or less than normally agile, but 
that is a difference easy to imagine. No at- 
tempt will here be made to distinguish be- 
tween dreams of different kinds, or between 
dreams in general and the ordinary course 
of consciousness. 

If intention and thought do not seem to 
demand the recognition of the body so impera- 
tively as sensation, it may be because sensa- 
tion itself seems to furnish them with any re- 
quisite antecedent events. As our observation 
of the body progresses, however, we learn to 
associate all mental action with the nervous 
system, and particularly with the brain, and 
to infer that nerves and consciousness have 
some necessary connection. Still, it remains 
comparatively easy to imagine disembodied 
thought. 



26 ESSAYS 

IX 

Unconscious inferences, indefinitely numer- 
ous, lead us to assume the existence of assem- 
blages of events without us, similar to those 
from which we derive the notions of our own 
bodies. The nature of such inferences can be 
only vaguely conjectured; but it is easier to 
understand how, after the existence of other 
bodies than our own has been assumed, we can 
go on to infer conscious mental processes con- 
nected with them. In my fourth essay, I have 
already mentioned the apparent possibility 
of infinitesimal variations of consciousness in 
the animal world, passing by insensible de- 
grees to the presumed unconsciousness of 
vegetables. 

In this view of life in general, we appear to 
have a still less direct conviction of other con- 
scious existences than our own than, we have 
of the unconscious existences in which we con- 
sider them embodied. But this view will be 
unsatisfactory to some, who would prefer to 
think of other minds as more immediately 
known to them than other bodies. They may 
wish to have a perfect assurance of the reality 
of other human beings, while reserving the 



ESSAYS 27 

right to consider the material universe as pos- 
sibly, if not certainly, unreal. Perfection of 
any kind, however, is beyond the scope of the 
present essays. 

The method by which we arrive, with what- 
ever reservations, at our conviction of the 
existence of consciousness other than our own, 
naturally induces us to believe also that this 
consciousness resembles ours. That is, we con- 
sider it at least probable that the sensations 
of our neighbors are like those which we ex- 
perience; that a red color, for instance, means 
to those who are not color-blind something 
much like what it means to us. This is clearly 
not a necessary conclusion. So long as the 
sensation of redness recurs to one man when 
it recurs to another, they are able to con- 
verse intelligently about red objects without 
the certainty of any similarity in their sen- 
sations. 

We are apt to extend this presumption of 
similarity even to unconscious existence. Two 
men, for example, may witness the fall of a 
tree. Each knows it only through his own sen- 
sations, which may or may not resemble those 
of the other. But both may assume that if the 
assemblage of external events before them con- 



28 ESSAYS 

stituted a conscious life, or if, in the language 
of my fourth essay, these events were inte- 
grated to any extent, there would be some 
similarity between them and the sensations of 
the two spectators. This assumption, on con- 
sideration, appears to be purely arbitrary. We 
may regard the events of the material universe 
as real, without comparing them in any way 
with those which constitute our own exist- 
ence. Let a tree fall in the absence of any 
spectators, and the assemblage of events so 
designated will be as real, and of a nature as 
unknown, as if it were witnessed by men. 

X 

Each present event, in the view which has 
here been taken of the present, is infinitely 
divisible; and its predecessor or successor in 
any given series differs from it only by an in- 
finitesimal variation in the past or future. This 
tends to give the series that quality of contin- 
uity which should apparently belong to an or- 
derly universe as distinguished from a chaos. 
The sequence of intention and execution, to be 
further considered below, is one chief method 
by which the sense of continuity is extended 
beyond the present, as well as, probably, a 



ESSAYS 29 

principal source of the unconscious assurance 
of order controlling our inferences. 

The question here suggests itself whether 
the course of consciousness should be regarded 
as composed of many series proceeding simul- 
taneously, or whether it forms but one infi- 
nitely divisible series, finite and unlike parts 
of which may alternate in the conscious ag- 
gregate. This is practically the question stated 
by Dante at the beginning of the fourth canto 
of his Purgatory, and, according to him, the 
second view, that of a single series, is the or- 
thodox doctrine. At all events, it is that easi- 
est to conceive and to hold. For convenience, 
then, we will regard events as proceeding in 
single series, whether integrated or not. 

The meaning, or the various meanings, of 
identity must next be considered. When we 
say that two pieces of cloth have the same 
color, as distinguished from the same kind of 
color, we are speaking, of course, only of a 
high degree of resemblance. Another view of 
identity is emphasized in the phrase "one and 
the same"; that is, unity is here the prominent 
notion. Two events may belong in this sense 
to the same series. Each of us has direct know- 
ledge of one such series, and assumes that he 



30 ESSAYS 

knows of others by inference, or, as some may 
prefer to believe, by intuition. Each series, re- 
garded as an aggregate, is constantly extend- 
ing itself by the addition of new events, and 
memory is never capable of reproducing the 
completed portion of it with all its infinite de- 
tails. The sense of personal identity will be 
referred by some to an unknown agent, apart 
from the series itself; by others, to the vague 
notion of that series furnished by memory. 
The form of our language is favorable to the 
first of these views ; those who adopt the sec- 
ond view must consider the first as illustrating 
the power to mislead which language acquires 
from the manner in which it has been de- 
veloped. 

Proper names, with which we may include 
the personal and demonstrative pronouns in 
the singular number, have come into use to 
supply practical wants, not to express philo- 
sophical theories. They are employed to refer 
to special series of events, each of which is 
regarded at the moment as single, however 
complex it may appear when more closely 
examined. All this will still be true of a proper 
name, even if we also believe it to designate a 
metaphysical substance. The reference which 



ESSAYS 31 

it implies to the corresponding series of events 
is of course indefinite and cursory; the very 
purpose of the word is to evade the necessity 
of entering into details not requisite to the 
comprehension of some special idea to be con- 
veyed by the sentence in which it occurs. The 
identity which it indicates may be expressed 
by the statement that all the events to which 
reference is made belong to one and the same 
series. My fourth essay contained a suggestion 
that, in this sense, thought and the thinker 
may be regarded as a part and an aggregate. 

Those who adopt this view of the meaning 
of proper names, to the exclusion of that no- 
tion of substances which others believe them 
to designate, are relieved from the necessity 
of adopting either of the medieval hypotheses 
known as realism and nominalism. Common 
nouns denote classes, and the reality of the 
events upon which any classification depends 
is also the reality of the events to which refer- 
ence is made by the names of the separate com- 
ponents of the classes resulting from that 
classification. It is only when we attribute to 
the individual a reality additional to that of 
the events which his name implies that we 
have to decide whether we will also attribute 



32 ESSAYS 

such an additional reality to the class to which 
we have assigned him. 

XI 

A special distinctness and vigor is a char- 
acteristic, in most men's minds, of that sense 
which each has of his own personal identity. 
The reason of this, in the view here adopted, 
is that each knows the events of his own life 
directly, and everything else only by infer- 
ence. The recognized continuity given to his 
own life by the ordinary sequence of intention 
and execution, which has already been no- 
ticed, is also of importance in maintaining his 
sense of personal identity. When events are 
classified in comparatively discontinuous series, 
the fact that two events belong to the same 
class does not impress us with so strong a feel- 
ing of the connection between them. Still, in 
the case of abstract nouns, such as faith, hope, 
and charity, for example, the contemplation 
of the events upon which the corresponding 
classification depends may excite strong feel- 
ing. In this case, we incline to personify the 
notion given us by the abstract noun, but we 
are usually aware that this personification is 
the work of our own imaginations. 



ESSAYS 33 

A classification made for strictly intellectual 
purposes, unattended by emotion, does not 
so readily lend itself to personification. The 
cardinal numbers, for example, result from the 
formation of classes very convenient in business 
transactions, but not directly appealing to our 
feelings. Hence, duality is not likely to be per- 
sonified, however possible in theory such a 
personification may be. The object of the in- 
tellect is generally to make thought definite by 
excluding, so far as possible, those notions 
which relate to infinities of any kind. The re- 
petition of the idea of a number is a compara- 
tively simple repetition; a repeated feeling in- 
volves infinite details. All classifying processes 
neglect some details; but a classification of 
virtues is less precise, as we say, that is, retains 
more of the mystery of infinity, than a classifi- 
cation of polygons. 

An example of an intermediate sort of classi- 
fication is the classification of color. We have 
already noticed that "the same kind of color" 
implies a more restricted notion of identity 
than " the same color," although, of course, 
this last expression is often practically equiva- 
lent to the first. If it means anything which 
can be expressed by a single general term, such 



34 ESSAYS 

as "red" or "blue," then identity has taken 
the place of mere similarity. But such general 
terms are felt to be vague as compared with 
those of science, although not so closely con- 
nected with emotion as to lead readily to per- 
sonification. 

It is almost needless to remark that no other 
subject is ordinarily so interesting, and, in that 
sense, so provocative of emotion, as his own 
life is to each of us; and to personify this re- 
quires no recognized effort of imagination. 
Such a process, however, is not properly to be 
called personification, which means a recog- 
nized imitation of it. 

XII 

One very familiar personification is that 
of Time; but I have never heard of a personi- 
fication of Space, and I presume that any such 
personification would appear forced and un- 
natural to the ordinary mind. The reason 
seems obvious; the idea of Time is derived 
from that sense of the succession of events 
upon which, as here supposed, our own per- 
sonality depends, while Space is regarded as an 
attribute of external nature exclusively. Suc- 
cess can scarcely be expected in any attempt 



ESSAYS 35 

to analyze or minutely to describe either of 
these ideas, for we have no assurance that the 
sensations in which either originates resemble 
one another in different minds. All we know is 
that these sensations recur under similar con- 
ditions, so that it is possible for us to under- 
stand one another's language with regard to 
them. 

We ascribe both to time and to space that 
continuity of which consciousness assures us 
in our own lives. This involves the notion of 
quantity, as distinct from number; but in 
practice, to make this notion useful to us, we 
try to express it by number, according to fa- 
miliar mathematical expedients. Sensation 
itself, no less than the derived notions of time 
and space, illustrates the possibility of numeri- 
cal measurements of quantity. Quantities of 
sensation are reduced to numerical forms by 
memories of aggregation and separation. Thus, 
the combined brightness of two lights is re- 
membered as greater than that of either sepa- 
rately observed; and the effort of lifting two 
weights together exceeds that required to lift 
one. 

Quantities of time and space would perhaps 
not be conceivable at all in the absence of the 



36 ESSAYS 

idea of motion. Every motion is a progress 
from the past into the future, as well as a change 
of place, whatever that may imply, when we 
consider that we have no position in space, like 
the present moment in time, from which we 
can reckon. The present position of the ma- 
terial universe being unknown, we have only 
the present relative positions of its parts as 
an origin of measurement. 

XIII 

Each man's notions of time and space are 
presumably the result of unconscious infer- 
ences, inherited or not, from indefinite sensa- 
tions. On this presumption, we cannot hope 
distinctly to comprehend them, even supposing 
them to be similar in different persons. We 
can only partially illustrate their origin by 
means of particular examples. 

A student may wish to consult a book which 
he sees on a shelf on the farther side of his 
room. He is aware, in the first place, that his 
intention cannot instantly be followed by its 
execution. An indefinite quantity of sensation 
must intervene, the notion of which is made 
somewhat more definite by the recurrence of 
similar sensations, such as those attending the 



ESSAYS 37 

steps taken in crossing the room to the shelf. 
The quantity of external events which is as- 
sumed to correspond to this quantity of sen- 
sation is a quantity of that combination of 
space and time which we call motion, the idea 
of which, I think, must precede that of space 
and time themselves. 

The various unrecognized experiences which 
have formed our idea of motion have shown 
us, secondly, that the initial and final events 
in any instance of motion may be separated 
by one minimum quantity of motion, and by 
only one such quantity. The kind of motion 
corresponding to this minimum quantity is 
that called rectilinear. These initial and final 
events may also be separated by any one of 
an indefinite number of quantities of motion, 
varying from the minimum to as great a quan- 
tity as we please to imagine; and each of these 
quantities may appear in as many distinct 
forms as we please. The distance of one ex- 
ternal event from another is the quantity of 
rectilinear motion intervening between them, 
and no other quantity of motion can properly 
be called a distance. The word distance has 
of course other meanings than this. In spheri- 
cal geometry, for example, it is applied to an- 



38 ESSAYS 

gular measurements. But the term "shortest 
distance "instead of "shortest path " or " short- 
est way" is needless and likely to produce 
confusion of ideas. 

The absence of rectilinear movements within 
any continuously observed group of events is 
our warrant for regarding it as a material ob- 
ject. As already noticed in my tenth essay, 
such terms as "material object" are formed 
for the purpose of excluding from considera- 
tion all that multiplicity of details in which the 
corresponding ideas are here assumed to origi- 
nate. This exclusion readily leads to the con- 
viction that the terms do not designate these 
details, but something more permanent; a con- 
viction which is not to be disturbed, in the 
minds of those who entertain it, by any discus- 
sion of its nature. 

Whatever conception of material objects we 
may prefer, it leads us to regard the external 
world as composed of bodies more or less per- 
manent, and gives us a basis for classification 
and nomenclature. My ninth essay has indi- 
cated the comparatively indirect process by 
which we arrive at the conviction of other 
mental existence than our own. 



ESSAYS 39 

XIV 

The initial and final events of any rectilinear 
motion may coincide with those of any other 
motion; and this requires us to admit that dif- 
ferent quantities of motion may correspond to 
a given quantity of what we may now begin 
to call time. Without the observed facts of 
motion, the mere succession of events making 
up a mental existence would hardly furnish, I 
suppose, that idea, or those ideas, of time 
which we actually have. With the idea of 
time comes that of space, and that of the rela- 
tion between them which we call velocity, 
when we have reduced it to a mathematical 
form. All this seems to be required before we 
can obtain a basis for the study of geometry. 
Arithmetic, as noticed in my fifth essay, might 
possibly be founded on the repetition of mental 
events ; but geometry is the study of space, and 
we cannot discuss space without assuming 
something with regard to motion, time, and 
velocity. 

It has been customary to begin geometrical 
treatises with a considerable parade of defini- 
tions, axioms, and postulates, as if these were 
all that would be needed for the proof of the 



40 ESSAYS 

ensuing propositions; and then to slip in here 
and there all kinds of assumptions relating to 
the superposition of figures, the rotation and 
reversal of planes, and so on, which are much 
less readily accepted, when attention has once 
been directed to them, than the formally 
avowed hypotheses previously set forth. 

Every definition implies the postulate that 
the ideas connected in it are really compatible; 
and with a sufficiency of new technical terms, 
we can proceed from one definition to another 
with little or no need for geometrical argument. 
The best practical form for an introduction 
to geometry need not be discussed here; but 
any consideration of the theory of space will 
lead us to some examination of the ordinary 
Euclidean conception on which our practical 
geometrical conclusions must in turn depend. 

XY 

Velocity, as well as motion itself, is a quan- 
titative conception. The actual origin of the 
idea of quantities of velocity must be referred 
to unconscious mental processes, so that any 
explanation of it can only be a conjecture. Per- 
haps the sense of quantity connected with the 
sensation of muscular effort, already noticed in 



ESSAYS 41 

my twelfth essay, has much to do with the 
notion of velocity. In our own movements, we 
exert ourselves more or less according to the 
rate at which we move; and in studying the 
movements of external objects, the effort of 
following them with the eye, or of resisting 
them with the hand, must vary with their 
speed. But however the fact may be explained, 
we certainly regard velocity as capable of mea- 
surement, and, without this conception, it 
seems probable that our present ideas of space 
and time could not be maintained. 

During any given series of events constitut- 
ing a movement, the velocity of that move- 
ment may be increasing or decreasing. Ob- 
servations of this kind lead us to the idea of a 
uniform velocity, which neither increases nor 
decreases. This idea, of course, is purely ab- 
stract; we cannot prove the occurrence of uni- 
form velocity in any particular instance, but 
we accept it as a limit at which an increase or 
decrease of velocity terminates, and it is sug- 
gested by any great similarity in the memories 
which repeat successive parts of the observed 
motion. 

Equal distances, traversed with a uniform 
velocity, give us a notion of equality in differ- 



42 ESSAYS 

ent intervals of time, which otherwise we could 
hardly attain. The notion of equality in dis- 
tance appears to depend upon our ability to 
contemplate simultaneously, or in rapid alter- 
nation, various distances in juxtaposition; and 
since this must result from our experience of 
motion, which enables us to effect such a juxta- 
position, we are again reminded that motion is 
requisite to ensure the existence of our notion 
of space. Since different times cannot thus be 
brought together, our ideas of their equality or 
inequality must apparently rest upon the com- 
bination of the ideas of distance and velocity. 
It can scarcely be necessary to remark that 
the similarity of successive events, such as the 
ticks of a watch, cannot prove the equality of 
the times which are required by these events. 
Time, then, as a measurable quantity, dis- 
tinct from the mere general notion of successive 
events, is so intimately connected with space 
and motion that we must assume all these ideas 
taken together to be requisite for the estab- 
lishment of any rational system of geometry. 

XVI 

Our ordinary geometry actually depends 
upon unconscious inference; and we are already 



ESSAYS 43 

far advanced in it when we first begin to con- 
sider it consciously. Acknowledging all this, 
we may still endeavor to describe a method of 
thought which might conceivably lead us to 
the mathematical conception of space neces- 
sary for geometrical reasoning. 

After reducing the present moment to an in- 
finitesimal, which we do as soon as we direct 
our attention to it, we find the external uni- 
verse appearing as an infinite set of inchoate 
events at various distances from each other. 
No motion among them can take place until 
some time has elapsed, and no motion among 
them is then necessarily conceived to occur. 
Their distances, regarded as constant, are 
practically conceived as the amounts of time 
corresponding to quantities of motion under 
the supposition of a uniform velocity. 

But while no relative motion in the external 
universe appears as a necessary consequence 
of the lapse of time, this lapse itself, however 
small, appears as a general motion, converting 
inchoate into developed events. This motion 
is always conceived as rectilinear, when the 
interval of time in which it occurs is sufficiently 
small. The well-known paradox, in which mo- 
tion is described as impossible because it can 



44 ESSAYS 

neither occur where an object is nor where it 
is not, shows us that we feel obliged to regard 
the successive places of that object as adjacent; 
that is, we regard the transfer of the object 
from one place to the next to be accomplished 
with that least possible movement which we 
call rectilinear. 

Continuing to exclude the idea of relative 
movement, we find the development of all 
events simultaneously and equably progressing, 
so that we have, from one instant to the next, 
the idea of equal rectilinear movements, con- 
tinuing at distances from each other equal to 
those originally existing. Further, any event 
remains, during its development, equally dis- 
tant from any of the inchoate events from which 
it was originally equally distant; and this idea 
still prevails whether we look backward to the 
past or forward to the future. In either case, 
the distances increase equally in equal times. 
Admitting the possibility of all these concep- 
tions, without the expectation of finding them 
realized in practice, we derive from them the 
general notion of ordinary, or Euclidean, space 
of three dimensions only, with its planes of 
two opposite and similar faces, and its paral- 
lel lines everywhere uniformly distant from 



ESSAYS 45 

each other, and perpendicular to a series of 
parallel planes. Each line, in this view of space, 
corresponds to the progress of an event or 
series of events, and each plane to the state of 
the universe at a given instant. The idea of 
direction will be considered a little later. 

To avoid misunderstanding, it is necessary 
constantly to repeat that our ideas of space 
have been formed unconsciously, and not by 
any such conscious analysis of the facts of 
time and motion as has been attempted above. 
But it remains probable to me that whatever 
idea of space each of us may have, it depends 
upon personal or ancestral experience of the 
facts of motion, and that our inability to con- 
ceive of more than three dimensions in space 
is practically equivalent to our inability to con- 
ceive of events as otherwise than either succes- 
sive, simultaneous, or at once simultaneous 
and successive. A single inchoate event has 
the relation to space of a geometrical point; 
it is somewhere, but has no extension. Ex- 
tended by time, it gives us the idea of a line; 
that of a surface is given by inchoate events 
in general; and their simultaneous develop- 
ment corresponds to the only notion of space 
as a whole which we can distinctly grasp. 



46 ESSAYS 

Accordingly, we feel that the succession 
of events constituting the operations of the 
mind, or the mind itself, as we may choose 
to regard it, has a position, but occupies no 
space. Its position appears to be somewhere 
in the relatively immovable parts of the body; 
no one, probably, ever considered mind as 
specially located in the arms or legs. In an- 
cient times, the heart or liver seemed as prob- 
able a seat for it as the brain, to which it was 
afterwards assigned by a rather complicated 
series of inferences. 

XVII 

Accoeding to the hypotheses above stated, 
our general notion of extension, whether in 
time or space, is derived from the succession 
of events; our notion of equality from the ob- 
servation and memory of external events; our 
measurements of space from the facts of mo- 
tion; and the suggestion of a possible measure- 
ment of time from our sense of velocity as a 
quantity, however that sense may have been 
obtained. In all physical investigations, we 
are accustomed to admit the conception of 
time thus expressed by Newton: 1 "Tempus 

1 Pri?icipia, Scholium, p. 6. 



ESSAYS 47 

absolutum, verum, et mathematicum, in se 
et natura sua sine relatione ad externum quod- 
vis, sequabiliter fluit, alioque nomine dicitur 
duratio"; and again, 1 "Accelerari et retardari 
possunt motus omnes, sed fluxus temporis ab- 
soluti mutari nequit." But the very possibility 
of this conception of time as a uniform current, 
unrelated to external events, must depend, I 
think, on these external events themselves. 
Newtonian time and Euclidean space cannot, 
strictly speaking, be separated from each other; 
they are parts of one general conception of the 
universe, to which the loss of either seems 
destructive. 

When we consider time and space separately, 
and refuse to allow the two ideas to maintain 
each other in our minds, we have no longer 
any assurance of time as a measurable quan- 
tity, or of a space of three dimensions, with 
our familiar planes and parallels. Abandoning 
altogether the relation of space to time, we are 
free to imagine additional dimensions in space, 
and to accept on an equal footing with the 
Euclidean, or, as it has also been called, the 
parabolic geometry, other geometrical con- 
ceptions analogically designated by the terms 

1 Ibid. p. 8. 



48 ESSAYS 

hyperbolic and elliptic, which it is needless to 
discuss in this place. 

The idea of direction appears to follow with 
little difficulty from that of Euclidean space. 
Selecting one point as an origin, we find an in- 
definite number of others equally distant from 
it. The rectilinear motions between the origin 
and these points differ, not in amount, but in 
another way to which the name of direction is 
applied. Since any observed or imagined recti- 
linear motion requires time for its completion, 
the course of time may be regarded as having 
any direction we please, all other directions 
being for the moment excluded by our pre- 
vious supposition of the absence of relative 
motion. 

The observed rotation of external objects 
with respect to each other also assists in form- 
ing our ideas of Euclidean direction, which 
might be variously expressed in a treatise on 
geometry by suitable definitions. But, in my 
judgment, the straight line should not be de- 
fined by means either of distance or of direc- 
tion, both of which are comparatively complex 
ideas derived from that of straightness, as is 
shown, indeed, in the case of direction, by the 
etymology of its name. 



ESSAYS 49 

XVIII 

The idea of cause and effect appears to 
originate in the sequence of intention and exe- 
cution, which has been regarded in my eleventh 
essay as an element in the conception of per- 
sonality. It is then transferred by more or less 
distinct personification to sequences of exter- 
nal events, in which one or another event, or 
the assemblage of many events, is regarded as 
a cause, according to the view of these events 
which may be taken at the moment. The cause, 
for instance, of the explosion of a cartridge 
may be the pulling of a trigger, or the chemi- 
cal structure of the cartridge, as we please. 

When this view of causation is extended as 
far as possible, we obtain that general state- 
ment of the order of nature already mentioned 
in my seventh essay, in which the momentary 
condition of the entire universe is assumed to 
be the necessary consequence of its predeces- 
sor, and the necessary preamble of that which 
is to follow. This statement, however, taken 
separately, does not give prominence enough 
to that notion of continuity which forms so im- 
portant an attribute of what we consider an or- 
derly universe. We have assumed a principle of 



50 ESSAYS 

order as a requisite for consciousness, memory, 
similarity, classification, inference, and causa- 
tion, and we shall now be as nearly able as we 
can ever be to express our understanding of 
what it implies. This understanding will be 
vague at best; for the subject is concerned with 
infinities, and we are finite; while at the same 
time our thoughts must be expressed in words 
each of which depends for its intelligibility 
upon the previous acceptance of the principle 
which is to be set forth. 

What exists, continues, unless disturbed by 
interference from without. A particular case of 
this general rule is the law of inertia in phys- 
ics. Interference, however vigorous, is not 
absolutely abrupt, but requires time, however 
brief, for the development of its effects. Ab- 
solutely complete repetitions do not occur, but 
partial repetitions are customary, and afford 
a practically useful basis for prediction. With 
whatever reservations, we find that the order 
of nature enables us to perceive similarities, to 
form classes, to draw inferences, and to con- 
struct language; but not to obtain certainties. 
They are theoretical, not practical matters. 
We have only a probable anticipation of the 
future, which may be contradicted at any 



ESSAYS 51 

moment by the result which we observe. The 
contradiction may lead us to new knowledge, 
without making us deny the practical value 
of prediction, although preventing us from 
granting it implicit confidence. 

We must not understand the order of nature 
in such a manner as to exclude the most im- 
portant and most directly known part of na- 
ture: that of mental operations, and, in par- 
ticular, of intentions. We are all constantly 
interrupting the order of merely physical na- 
ture by what we call voluntary action. If we 
choose, we may assume such action by unseen 
agencies to occur at any time, or constantly, 
without disturbing the order of nature in its 
most general aspect. 

XIX 

We return to the consideration of intention 
and execution, above assumed as the origin of 
our idea of causation. Here we need compara- 
tively little knowledge of the existing condi- 
tion of the universe to justify a prediction; yet 
we have no certainty. An orator may have 
a stroke of paralysis in the middle of a sentence, 
and the next word which he meant to utter will 
remain unspoken. 



52 ESSAYS 

We cannot predict intentions of our own, 
and still less those of others, with a degree of 
confidence at all approaching that which we 
feel in the execution of a known intention. If 
the action which we are to perform is very soon 
to occur, the prediction of the intention can 
scarcely be distinguished from its actual forma- 
tion; if the action is remote, we are aware of 
too many possible changes in our present cir- 
cumstances to allow us to predict what we 
shall mean to do when the time for action 
arrives. If, indeed, we can make such a pre- 
diction, it would seem that we already mean 
the action to take place. 

It cannot be surprising, then, that inten- 
tions should often be regarded only as causes, 
and not as the consequences of any previous 
events, while the execution of any intention 
is regarded only as its consequence. This may 
be presumed to be the mental attitude of those 
who maintain the doctrine of the freedom of 
the will in its simplest form. The paradoxes 
to which this doctrine leads us are too familiar 
to need repetition in detail. If the assemblage 
of events constituting the previous life of any 
man does not largely influence his intentions 
for the future, we shall be unable to assign to 



ESSAYS 53 

him any definite character. Without a char- 
acter, his condition is even beyond insanity 
and irresponsibility, a result directly contrary 
to that desired by the advocates of his freedom. 
Their opponents admit that his character does 
not absolutely determine his intention at any 
given moment; the circumstances surround- 
ing him at the time must have their share in 
his decision; but the strength of his character 
is shown by his comparative independence of 
these circumstances. 

The meaning of character appears to be 
the expectation of behavior under given cir- 
cumstances which is formed by knowledge of 
previous events. Responsibility is the expec- 
tation of a judgment of character, with its 
attendant feelings, which is largely to depend 
upon the execution of a contemplated action. 

If a man previously thought to be selfish 
and unkind does anything apparently gener- 
ous, the comment made upon his action by 
an advocate of the theory of free will would 
be, I suppose, "You see he can do well if he 
chooses." Unless this is to be taken merely as 
a recognition of the observed events, I should 
regard it as a substitution of words for dis- 
tinct thought; it seems to me to convey no 



54 ESSAYS 

intelligible hypothesis. Under similar circum- 
stances, a religious man may say, "All things 
are possible with the aid of divine grace." We 
have here an explanation of the event which is 
intelligible, and tenable by any one who finds 
it edifying. But the ordinary remark upon the 
subject would be, "His character, then, is not 
so bad as I supposed it." 

That view of personal identity which re- 
gards it as something different from the events 
constituting the life of the person has doubt- 
less much to do with the theory of free will. 
Intentions, I suppose, are regarded by those 
who adopt such a belief as originating outside 
of that sequence of events to which our ideas of 
cause and effect are confined. But the theory 
of the universe leading to this result has been 
regarded throughout these essays as suggested 
by words rather than by ideas. 

While we have assumed personal identity 
to depend upon the continuity of the events 
of a single life as a whole, we have repeatedly 
noticed the importance of the intentions form- 
ing part of this series in exhibiting this continu- 
ity. We may almost say that the intentions 
make the man in the ordinary apprehension of 
him as a person. But this does not warrant us 



ESSAYS 55 

in excepting them from the ordinary principle 
of dependence upon some preceding events, 
partly or wholly unknown. 

XX 

If the treatment accorded above to a ques- 
tion which has exercised the ingenuity of man- 
kind for so many ages should appear to any 
reader far too negligent, he must remember 
that I am only casting my vote upon that 
question, not presuming to decide it. The gen- 
eral theory of ethics, which we now find im- 
mediately before us, will necessarily receive 
even less discussion in proportion to its im- 
portance. 

The ideas of pleasure and pain are too simple 
to be otherwise defined than by mere syno- 
nyms, like those used by the ancient Stoics. 
They form the foundation of all systems of 
ethics, even when they are as much as possible 
avoided. One such system regards the moral 
law as immutable, and as imposed on us by 
superhuman authority. It is also usually 
conceived as having the sanction of future 
rewards and punishments. In that case there 
is no doubt of its ultimate dependence upon 
the desire of pleasure and the apprehension 



56 ESSAYS 

of pain. But when this addition to the origi- 
nal idea of a divine command is rejected, it 
remains obvious that there is pleasure in obedi- 
ence, and pain in disobedience, to an author- 
ity regarded with love and reverence; while, 
if no respect is entertained for a lawgiver, and 
no apprehension is felt of any consequence of 
his displeasure, no motive for obeying him can 
remain. 

The principal alternative to the view of the 
moral law which makes it depend upon inspira- 
tion from above is that which makes it depend 
directly upon the disposition of man to seek 
pleasure, and more particularly to avoid pain. 
Before the comparatively recent acceptance, 
among the thinking part of mankind, of the 
present opinions about evolution and inher- 
itance, there was more difficulty than now 
exists in understanding the promptness with 
which moral emotions arise in the ordinary 
mind when any occasion occurs for their ex- 
ercise. It must, however, have been clear to 
every ancient inquirer into the subject that 
social as well as selfish propensities formed part 
of the human constitution, and were ready to 
influence conduct without the intervention of 
conscious reasoning. Those who rejected the 



ESSAYS 57 

method of accounting for these propensities 
by divine inspiration were under no obligation 
to substitute for it any other theory; they might 
well be content to take facts as they found 
them, and admit conflicting impulses as among 
the ultimate conditions of life. The relative 
amounts of pain to be incurred by resistance 
to one or another of these impulses would then 
be regarded as controlling the motives to such 
actions as would be called good or bad. This 
process would require no conscious reasoning 
in cases where immediate action was needed. 
Two main objections may be made to such a 
view of life. First, if our purpose is to attain 
pleasure, we have no assurance of success 
through any action of our own. Happiness is 
elusive; as the German song says, it is where we 
are not. It comes rather when we do not strive 
for it than when we do. This objection, how- 
ever, seems most important to those who in- 
sist on certainty in human affairs, and are not 
satisfied with the mere probability which most 
of us are ready to accept as a reason for action. 
Every one knows what, on the whole, will 
please him, and knows still better what will 
prove unpleasant, especially when the pleasure 
or pain of the immediate future is concerned. 



58 ESSAYS 

Secondly, the question may be raised whether 
we can balance pleasure against pain, or one 
pain against another; whether there is any 
quantitative relation in such emotions. Here, 
again, we have an unreasonable demand for 
the precision of mathematics in matters of 
feeling. We do practically consider pleasure 
and pain as measurable and comparable quan- 
tities. A man may decide upon a trip for plea- 
sure across the Atlantic, although he feels sure 
of being seasick both on the outward and on 
the homeward voyage. But when we approach 
equality in such measurements, we cannot 
pretend to decide which of the quantities com- 
pared is the greater. 

In any case, then, which does not call for 
immediate action, ethical deliberation, based 
on considerations of pain and pleasure, is pos- 
sible, and is actually in frequent use, whichever 
theory of the moral law may be approved. 

XXI 

The opinion attributed to Epicurus by Ci- 
cero, 1 that dishonor would be no evil if attended 
by no pain, is misconstj'ued by the oratorical 
philosopher, perhaps intentionally, for the sake 

1 Tusc. Quaest. ii, 12. 



ESSAYS 59 

of his rhetoric. If correctly stated, we must 
understand the assertion to imply a definition 
of evil as pain itself, or any cause of pain, with 
a correlative definition of good as pleasure or 
whatever produces it. Little fault, probably, 
will be found with these definitions except that 
they serve us poorly in distinguishing between 
good and evil, since one man is pleased by an 
event which pains another. Accordingly, in 
utilitarian ethics, the general welfare, com- 
monly restricted, however, to the general wel- 
fare of mankind, excluding creatures regarded 
as inferior, is held to be the proper aim of good- 
ness. Now this general welfare is incapable 
of any exact definition, and the notion enter- 
tained of it greatly varies in different times 
and places. 

The action of the good Samaritan in the 
parable will probably be universally approved 
by all who are informed of it. The labor and 
inconvenience endured in order to relieve im- 
mediate and unmerited distress will always 
appear desirable in the interest of mankind 
generally, as well as in that of the sufferer 
himself. The legendary self-sacrifice of a De- 
cius or a Winkelried to ensure the victory of 
his countrymen, from their point of view at 



60 ESSAYS 

least, will merit similar approval. The senti- 
ment of honor which supported and still to 
some extent supports the practice of duelling, 
and that which is said to induce the Sicilian 
peasant, as well as others nearer us, to prefer 
private vengeance to legal methods for the 
redress of injuries, may also be defended, under 
special conditions of society, by utilitarian 
as well as by intuitive ethics. Finally, politi- 
cal assassination, so frequent in our own 
times as well as formerly, appears to the as- 
sassins themselves as a service to humanity. 
Whether it will so appear to others will depend 
upon its results. The assassins of Hipparchus 
were eulogized as heroic liberators by later 
Athenian generations; the assassin of Lincoln 
was almost universally detested; but would 
this have been the case if his action had re- 
sulted in any great political change agreeable 
to a large section of his countrymen ? 

In any argument relating to the general 
welfare, we ought, apparently, to consider the 
future as well as the present, and inquire into 
the utility, as examples to be followed, of such 
actions as we may discuss. But in successive in- 
stances of similar situations, the circumstances 
must be sufficiently alike to make the prece- 



ESSAYS 61 

dents applicable; and as the circumstances are 
sure to vary, we shall still find it difficult to 
lay down such definite rules of conduct as we 
may desire. We have practically to limit our- 
selves to the consideration of the immediate 
future, and, in any case, to trust largely to 
the relative strength of our natural tendencies, 
however we suppose them to originate. 

Most of us, however, conclude from our ob- 
servation of life that our social sentiments are 
relatively too feeble for the general good, and 
need encouragement, while our selfish instincts 
require control and repression. The conflict 
of these opposing tendencies is disagreeable, 
and becomes extremely painful to a sensitive 
spirit, eager for divine guidance. This, I sup- 
pose, is the explanation of what is called the 
sense of sin; a term the meaning of which I have 
known a wise and highly virtuous man to 
say he could not comprehend. Others, again, 
will tell us that unassisted human nature will 
always fail to control its selfishness, and that 
without religion there can be no true morality. 
To make this plausible, however, they have 
to imagine a human being, if so he can be 
called, nearly destitute of sympathy and affec- 
tion except for himself. The questions may be 



62 ESSAYS 

asked whether any motive, apart from religion, 
can be suggested to such a being for the cul- 
tivation and development of his rudimentary 
social impulses, and, if this motive proves in- 
sufficient, whether he will be more accessible 
to others derived from religion. 

If the unsympathetic creature thus imagined 
is also too stupid to care for anything beyond 
the present moment, his case seems indeed to 
be hopeless. If, however, he is accustomed to 
consider the future, he is doubtless already in 
the habit of insuring himself against misfor- 
tune so far as possible. The ancient type of 
this sort of selfish man was the miser, who 
strove for a hoard of money which he would 
not use for the benefit of others or for his own; 
his modern successor finds it more advisable 
to invest his property in various ways, not 
omitting what we commonly call insurance. 
Now, in his consideration of the future, he 
must become aware that even if he perfectly 
succeeds in avoiding other misfortunes which 
may make him dependent upon his neighbors, 
nothing but an early death, the anticipation 
of which is itself a misfortune, can enable him 
to escape old age, in which his capacity for 
strictly selfish comfort will decline, so that if 



ESSAYS 63 

he has no sympathy with the younger people 
around him, he can only envy them; a prospect 
which certainly cannot be attractive. But if 
he attempts to cultivate sympathetic feeling 
earlier in life, he will find himself involved in 
the conflict already mentioned between op- 
posing emotions. This is the cost of the de- 
sired insurance; I will not presume to decide 
whether the rate is reasonable. 

More obvious motives for sympathetic ac- 
tion, if not for sympathetic feeling, arise, of 
course, from the apprehension of hostile sen- 
timent, and probably of hostile action, on the 
part of other people. The sentiment may not 
appear important to such a man as we have 
been considering, but the action can hardly 
be a matter of indifference; while the attempt 
to restrain the outward appearance of selfish- 
ness leads to an internal conflict of a meaner, 
and perhaps no less unpleasant, kind than that 
of the social and selfish instincts. 

Religion may doubtless be more powerful 
than mere reason in some cases of the sort 
above discussed; but we are told in the par- 
able of Lazarus that "if they hear not Moses 
and the prophets, neither will they be per- 



64 ESSAYS 

XXII 

We have hitherto been dwelling upon the 
older ethical notions antecedent to that con- 
viction of the course of nature which has 
tended to become so prevalent during the last 
half century. In the ordinary view of the uni- 
verse which now presents itself to our minds, 
we regard its constitution as one of "checks 
and balances," like our parliamentary govern- 
ments. A "struggle for existence" is every- 
where in progress, and the means employed 
in this struggle are continually counteracting 
themselves, as well as each other. It is an ad- 
vantage to any species of animals to be pro- 
lific; but if a carnivorous species is more pro- 
lific than its prey, it is tending to extinguish 
itself by starvation. Similarly, indiscriminate 
charity is known to increase the very evil 
which it attempts to suppress. 

Our experience of life, accordingly, enforces 
upon us the ancient maxim "No excess"; but 
an exclusive reliance upon this principle of 
action may easily itself become excessive, 
tending to restrain sentiments which are al- 
ready relatively weak, and which require en- 
couragement rather than repression. "No 



ESSAYS 65 

deficiency" is as valuable a rule in itself, and 
better in so far as it urges us to action rather 
than to apathy, provided, of course, that our 
theory of life gives the preference to activity. 

The "struggle for existence" aims at the 
prolongation of the life of the individual or 
the species ; and from this point of view good- 
ness means success in this prolongation, which 
requires a continual readjustment of propen- 
sities previously acquired to present circum- 
stances. This readjustment can never be satis- 
factory, because present circumstances are 
transient. We are always behindhand in our 
conscious or unconscious efforts to conform 
to existing conditions, and cannot avoid the 
disturbances occasioned by the conflict within 
us of contradictory impulses. It has already 
been admitted that religion affords many minds 
the most available protection against the dis- 
tress of some such conflicts. 

Without intending to controvert any of the 
various opinions which may be held upon this 
subject, let us proceed at once to the conclu- 
sions which are here assumed to result from the 
foregoing considerations. The moral law, in 
the view thus taken of it, is a variable code, 
under continual readjustment to observed 



66 ESSAYS 

facts. It is expressed in propensities, mainly 
inherited from our ancestors, some obsolescent, 
others becoming stronger, and many of those 
in full vigor contending with each other. In 
any ethical situation demanding immediate 
action, we are governed by the relative strength 
of the various impulses acting at the moment 
upon our minds; that is, as said in my nine- 
teenth essay, by our characters. When there 
is time for consideration, we resort, consciously 
or not, to anticipations of the relative amounts 
of pleasure or pain to be expected, on the whole, 
from different courses of action. Such antici- 
pations are indefinite, owing to our inability 
to measure advantage and disadvantage with 
precision, and we often reverse our judgments 
upon a subsequent review of cases formerly 
determined. 

Before quitting the subject, let us notice 
the familiar ethical puzzles relating to truth 
and falsehood. It is generally admitted that 
a lie may rightly be told to protect an innocent 
fugitive from pursuit, on the ground that the 
pursuer has no right to the information for 
which he asks. Again, it is currently reported 
to be an approved practice among those en- 
deavoring to learn the truth about a crime to 



ESSAYS 67 

attempt to obtain a confession, or testimony 
against others, from a suspected man, by 
falsely telling him that some one else has made 
a statement which implicates him. In this last 
case, I should say that the value of the result 
must be too small to warrant the falsehood 
employed in obtaining it. These instances 
merely illustrate the absence of precisely de- 
fined moral rules, and the difficulty of balanc- 
ing the general advantage of mankind against 
the special interest of the moment. 

XXIII 

Our ideas of good and evil, right and wrong, 
however deficient in precision, are probably 
more distinct than our use of the words re- 
lating to them. A man may be right in avoid- 
ing a serious injury to himself at the expense 
of a trifling inconvenience to a friend, but the 
opposite course is absurd rather than wrong; 
it may even be an evidence of goodness. In gen- 
eral, good deeds are considered to be such as 
benefit others than the doer. But when good 
and evil are discussed apart from ethical con- 
siderations, we are more likely to regard them 
as causes of pleasure and pain in general, ac- 
cording to the doctrine attributed to Epicurus, 
as appeared above. 



68 ESSAYS 

We have just seen that the perpetual re- 
adjustment of propensities to circumstances 
which is the most prominent characteristic of 
what we call evolution leaves us always de- 
siring something unattainable at the moment; 
and when we might reach it but for a change 
of circumstances, that change has occurred, 
so that we are no better pleased than before. 
This fact seems to form the apology for the 
theory commonly called pessimism. This 
philosophic pessimism cannot recommend the 
refusal of the human race to continue itself; 
for if wise men leave no descendants, the fools 
remain; and if the entire race comes to an end, 
a new one may develop from the lower ani- 
mals. 

An unreflecting animal cannot in the philo- 
sophic sense be a pessimist; and a reflecting 
animal will do well to use his intellectual powers 
in the restraint of unreasonable aspirations after 
perfect satisfaction of any kind. Let him en- 
deavor to mend matters for himself and others 
as he finds opportunities for doing so, without 
expecting to attain a condition in which mend- 
ing will be less urgently required than it is at 
present. The labor of mending may be a plea- 
sure as well as a pain, and the wise man will 



ESSAYS 69 

keep the pleasurable aspect of it before him as 
much as he can. This mental attitude is pre- 
sumably what George Eliot meant by melior- 
ism; for if that term is used to mean the notion 
that the world is approaching a more satis- 
factory condition, it expresses only a delusion. 
What is to come would perhaps be more satis- 
factory to us if we had it now; it will not satisfy 
our successors better than our present state 
satisfies us. 

Philosophic optimism needs no further re- 
futation than that given us by Voltaire in his 
"Candide." No verbal ingenuity will per- 
suade mankind that they are as well off as they 
might be. It is true that if we destroy an evil 
we lose the pleasure of overcoming it. Virtue 
and the admiration of virtue are gone when 
good intentions find no resistance. But we still 
feel that we should be happier if virtue were 
needless. 

Practical optimism and pessimism, as dis- 
tinguished from the mere speculations bearing 
those names, relate to an attempt at com- 
paring the relative amounts of good and evil 
which we actually experience. On the pessi- 
mistic side it may be urged that extreme dis- 
tress so far outweighs any possible pleasure as 



70 ESSAYS 

to be wholly incapable of compensation. On 
the other hand, it is said that moderate ner- 
vous excitement is generally a pleasure, be- 
coming painful only when too much increased, 
and that extreme disturbances are rare and 
brief; also, that we have a considerable power 
of controlling our feelings, and can often suc- 
ceed in moderating, if not in suppressing, dis- 
tress which is purely of mental origin; some- 
times even that resulting from material causes. 

But all attempts to balance the amounts of 
pleasure and pain in even a single life are fu- 
tile. The problem is too vast for a finite mind. 
During his last illness, no doubt, a man may 
be excused for being a pessimist, but the mere 
anticipation of it should not make him so. 
Sympathy with the pleasure of others, and 
freedom from envy, are our greatest security 
for such happiness as we can have. There is 
one large part of life in which we can all be 
optimists. The absence of knowledge is no 
evil, while its acquisition is a good. The plea- 
sure of seeking new information may be en- 
joyed whenever we have leisure for it. 

Upon the whole, we may decide rather to 
call ourselves agnostics, so far as happiness is 
concerned, than either optimists or pessimists. 



ESSAYS 71 

XXIV 

In what has just been said, we have again 
been approaching that limit of possible thought 
which we call infinity. To play about a limit, 
however, is a human tendency which is not easily 
controlled, and speculation extending beyond 
the possibility of uninspired knowledge is so 
universal that it must not here be absolutely 
neglected. We shall first be obliged to con- 
sider the value of evidence, so often invoked 
to uphold hypotheses relating to the infinite. 

Hypotheses are of two kinds, which I will 
call explanatory and exploratory, to avoid the 
use of any term seeming to imply disparage- 
ment. An explanatory hypothesis simply sug- 
gests a cause for some observed effect, with- 
out undertaking to indicate the method of its 
operation, or to predict the occurrence of a 
similar train of events; while the attainment 
of a basis for prediction is the chief aim of the 
kind of hypothesis here called exploratory. It 
often happens that such a hypothesis seems 
merely explanatory to those not interested in 
the investigation which it suggests. Thus, the 
hypothesis of gravitation is apt to appear to 
the ordinary mind as an explanation of the 



72 ESSAYS 

fall of an apple by the assertion that the earth 
attracts it, while to Newton its real meaning 
related to possible predictions of the apparent 
positions of satellites and of planets. 

Evidence asserts sensations; it may thus be 
able to verify predictions, and this is the only 
sense in which it can be said to prove hypothe- 
ses. But this proof is not retrospective, with 
regard to supposed causes; its result is to give 
us confidence in future predictions. The law 
of gravitation does not prove attraction, if 
that word implies anything beyond the ob- 
served fact that the apple falls when released. 

It was assumed in my eighteenth essay that 
our ideas of cause and effect are derived from 
our perceptions of intention followed by exe- 
cution. It is not surprising, then, that man- 
kind have always been prone, on the occasion 
of any unexpected event, to explain it by means 
of some personification. Familiar events usu- 
ally pass without suggesting the need of an 
explanation; but if an explanatory hypothesis 
is set up, some sense of personification may at- 
tend it. Thus, when gravitation is explained 
by attraction, the attracting body is regarded 
as a personal agent. 

An eclipse is an event sufficiently unusual 



ESSAYS 73 

to excite the imagination of a savage, who will 
be apt to ascribe it to the maleficence of some 
hypothetical animal or demon. As men ad- 
vance in civilization, they learn to classify 
eclipses with various customary terrestrial 
phenomena which occasion no wonder, and 
they then regard the earlier hypothesis as a 
superstition. The ancient citizen of Athens or 
of Rome, if moderately instructed, may have 
regarded an eclipse as an ordinary event, re- 
quiring no special hypothesis to explain it. 
But the same citizen, perhaps, might regard 
thunder and lightning as resulting from the 
intention of a divine personage called Zeus or 
Jupiter, who governed the air, in particular, 
although he was often regarded as in supreme 
control. As time went on, thunder and light- 
ning, too, came to be considered as customary 
events, depending in some way upon ordi- 
nary laws of nature, and capable of imitation, 
to some extent, by human means. Yet, while 
we now predict eclipses with considerable ac- 
curacy, we have thus far obtained very little 
power of prediction with respect to thunder, 
although we are in hopes of more. The fall 
of aerolites, and the occurrence of showers of 
shooting stars, are at the present day explained 



74 ESSAYS 

by hypotheses which deserve to be called ex- 
ploratory, since, in some slight degree, they 
furnish bases for prediction. But it is not very 
long since men were in doubt whether to re- 
ject the evidence by which the fall of an aero- 
lite was asserted, or to regard the occurrence 
as miraculous. In general, we observe a tend- 
ency in mankind to accept at first some hy- 
pothesis of personal agency as an explanation 
of any strange event, and subsequently, when 
it has been repeated often enough, to attempt 
to bring it under some classification which will 
permit its future occurrence to be predicted. 
If the attempt is even partially successful, the 
reference to personal agency becomes less satis- 
factory, and is ultimately dropped. 

While the actions of large masses of men 
can to some extent be predicted from what are 
called laws of human nature, the action of any 
one person under given circumstances can 
only be foretold if his character is much better 
known than is usually possible. This prob- 
ably strengthens the tendency just noticed 
to refer unusual occurrences, the repetition of 
which we are unable to predict, to some in- 
dividual agency which we may suppose to be 
as capricious as we choose. But a hypothesis 



ESSAYS 75 

which does not help us to predict anything is 
merely explanatory, whether it is natural or 
not. Now some minds may, and in fact do, 
prefer to dispense with hypotheses of this kind. 
Others insist upon some explanation, even if 
it needs another explanation to explain it. To 
use the terms of an Eastern superstition, their 
world must be supported by an elephant, and 
the elephant perhaps by a tortoise. By this 
time the imagination may be sufficiently fa- 
tigued to acquiesce in an agnosticism to which 
recourse might equally well have been taken 
at the outset. 

An exploratory hypothesis may be service- 
able in retracing past history as well as in 
foretelling the future; but in this case it can- 
not be verified by direct observation. 

XXV 

One hypothesis available for the explanation 
of testimony to the occurrence of anything 
unusual is the intentional or unintentional 
falsity of that testimony itself. I have had oc- 
casion, in my eighth essay, to notice the pos- 
sibility of a hypothesis according to which we 
are always dreaming; and part of our appar- 
ently waking life may at all events be a dream. 



76 ESSAYS 

It is obvious that a dream can be so called 
only after a decision that the sensations of 
which it consists do not indicate the occur- 
rence of external events. How such decisions 
are actually reached, and how far they may 
be justified, are questions scarcely to be deter- 
mined at present. 

We already have some reason to think that 
delusions of the senses may simultaneously 
affect more persons than one. But if all the 
witnesses to an event agree in their accounts 
of it, we have no means at present of proving 
them to be wrong. We may, however, disbe- 
lieve their statements without doubting their 
honesty. 

In every case in which testimony is accepted, 
a predisposition to accept it must exist. In 
an ordinary trial for murder, the evidence 
presented would make no impression upon 
jurymen who were not previously fully satis- 
fied that it is practicable for one man to be 
killed by another. When any event is reported 
which seems apart from the ordinary course 
of nature, those who attribute it to the per- 
sonal agency of others than ordinary human 
beings must already feel tolerably sure that 
such an agency is credible. They may assert 



ESSAYS 77 

that their belief depends upon a long course 
of experience, such as determines the belief of 
every one in the most familiar natural laws. 
But the very fact that the reported events are 
unusual, so far as the mass of mankind are 
aware, shows that many hearers of the sup- 
posed testimony cannot have minds really pre- 
pared to receive it. 

Historically, as we have seen, men in gen- 
eral did begin with a predisposition to think 
that any event not perfectly familiar should be 
referred to personal agency. This predisposi- 
tion has actually diminished with the course 
of time. It is conceivable that it may recur, 
but this will require the reversal of a process 
which has been going on for ages. If this pro- 
cess continues without reversal, it is to be ex- 
pected that events now seeming inexplicable 
will be brought under classifications which 
will enable men to determine the conditions 
under which they occur. 

At the present time, we are offered a num- 
ber of hypotheses for the explanation of al- 
leged occurrences, in support of which much 
testimony is presented. First, the testimony 
may be false, intentionally or not; second, 
unconscious mental operations on the part of 



78 ESSAYS 

human beings, carried on under unknown laws, 
may occasion results which appear to us unac- 
countable; third, spirits formerly inhabiting 
human bodies, and recollecting their lives in 
that state, may voluntarily, or by force of 
magic, intervene in our affairs; fourth, other 
spirits, of a benevolent or malevolent nature, 
able to observe what goes on among us, and 
thus acquiring a knowledge of our doings and 
thoughts, may choose to make use of this 
knowledge to our perplexity; fifth, direct di- 
vine intervention may be invoked to account 
for a certain part of the strange events, and 
this part may then be called miraculous. 

Now all these are explanatory hypotheses 
in the sense that at present they form no good 
basis for prediction. Those of us, therefore, who 
do not feel the need of an immediate explana- 
tion for everything that may happen, will be 
disposed to keep their minds in suspense, and 
adopt no hypothesis at all. The case would 
be different if any need of immediate action 
with regard to a strange event should present 
itself; but this seems unlikely. We may leave 
the investigation of such subjects to others who 
take an interest in them, and are willing to run 
whatever risk to sanity may be involved in their 
inquiries. 



ESSAYS 79 

XXVI 

Among the hypotheses above mentioned, 
that relating to unconscious mental opera- 
tions seems most likely to lend itself ultimately 
to ordinary scientific inquiry. In an age of 
wireless telegraphy, it is somewhat more cred- 
ible than in former times that mental activity 
may so extend itself as to influence thought at a 
distance in a mind attuned, so to speak, to the 
reception of such an influence. In my second 
essay, I noticed this topic only to dismiss it 
as immaterial at the moment; and although it 
has here been brought more distinctly before 
us, it must still be left to very different in- 
quirers to rescue, if they can, from uncon- 
sciousness any form of transmissible mental 
energy. The present method of examining the 
question seems to be that of suspending con- 
scious activity rather than heightening it; 
and this method does not commend itself to 
my judgment, although I am unable to sug- 
gest a better one. 

As to unusual physical events, such as move- 
ments of material objects, said to be due to the 
will of human beings or of spirits invoked to 
assist them, we may very well decline to take 



80 ESSAYS 

an interest in such matters until some practi- 
cal use can be made of them. When furniture 
can be conveyed from one house to another, 
without the assistance of wagons and of la- 
borers, the public will undoubtedly be disposed 
to avail itself of such conveniences for moving, 
and the scientific world will find much inter- 
est in the investigation of the laws according 
to which the work is done. 

It may now be worth while to repeat that 
hypotheses do not originate in evidence, but 
in imagination. Evidence may prove the 
availability of a hypothesis as a means of pre- 
diction; but this must not be evidence of iso- 
lated facts, but of recurring events open to 
general observation, or else of events capable 
of reproduction at pleasure by experiment, 
however rarely they may present themselves 
at other times. The experiment, moreover, 
must be one which an ordinary investigator 
can undertake, not one demanding the agency 
of peculiarly gifted persons. It is true that 
a new investigation may require a specially 
capable investigator; but until he has made it 
accessible to repetition by ordinary people, he 
has not yet succeeded in obtaining his in- 
tended addition to knowledge. 



ESSAYS 81 

Evidence of particular occurrences can be 
accepted only when it is in accordance with 
the fundamental hypotheses prevalent at the 
time and place where the evidence is offered. 
Trials for witchcraft are not undertaken in 
our time at Salem or Boston, because the 
hypothesis of witchcraft is not as prevalent 
among us as it was among our ancestors. What- 
ever belief we can find which will comply with 
the old theological requirement of acceptance 
at all times and places, and by all men, will 
undoubtedly serve as a basis for evidence of 
special facts. In the absence of such belief, no 
testimony can be a rational warrant for its 
formation. 

Still, testimony may give rise to belief, be- 
cause, as we have seen, men are prone to call 
for an explanation of whatever happens or is 
said to happen. This tendency has been use- 
ful in setting real investigation on foot, and 
therefore should not be absolutely condemned. 
But history has repeatedly shown us that great 
evils may result from explanations which 
merely explain, without leading to general laws 
available for definite predictions. 



82 ESSAYS 

XXVII 

Communications purporting to be received 
from the spirits of deceased human beings may, 
as just stated, be variously explained; and until 
they prove to be much more frequent, and 
much more valuable, than they are hitherto 
understood to have been, we need not concern 
ourselves with them in any discussion which we 
may undertake of the doctrine of human im- 
mortality in general. This doctrine is well 
known to be agreeable to many, perhaps to 
most, of the human species, and repulsive to 
some. What is here to be said of it will relate 
chiefly to its meaning rather than to its value 
or truth. 

Whatever view may be taken of the soul; 
whether we are to regard it as something apart 
from the events which compose its conscious- 
ness, or merely as a condensed expression de- 
scriptive of those events, it seems pretty clear 
that the events, and not the permanent sub- 
stance underlying them, are the subject of the 
ordinary man's contemplation when he an- 
ticipates a renewal of his existence after his 
present life is concluded. If he expects neither 
happiness nor misery, neither the sense of 



ESSAYS 83 

activity nor the sense of rest, he can scarcely 
be said to expect any future life at all. It will 
be needless, therefore, to return in this place 
to the obscure subject of mind and matter, 
already considered in the early essays of the 
present series. 

Our present conceptions of what we call evo- 
lution make us regard as good, in a special 
sense of that word, whatever tends to pro- 
long existence, as has already been noticed in 
my twenty-second essay. It is natural, then, 
that a life after death should so frequently be 
regarded as desirable. Moreover, while our 
experience of life makes both good and evil 
appear as its inevitable accompaniments, we 
can easily conceive them as less intimately min- 
gled than we have found them. Imagination 
readily presents to us the good as hereafter 
the exclusive possession of ourselves and our 
friends, while we assign the evil to our enemies, 
or to unknown persons with whom we have 
comparatively little sympathy. This view of 
a future life, once, apparently, very vivid and 
almost universal, while it still exists, is not now 
made as prominent as of old, even among those 
by whom it is formally avowed; and we shall 
have no space here for further discussion of it. 



84 ESSAYS 

Belief in another life than ours does not 
necessarily include any connection by mem- 
ory between two successive existences. We can 
imagine the two series of events as intimately 
connected with each other, one directly de- 
pending upon the other, and beginning where 
it ends, without being consciously united with 
it. A stone, thrown into the air, may simply 
fall upon the ground, and the shock thus given 
may distribute itself through nature at large; 
or the falling stone may occasion the explosion 
of a cartridge and the flight of a bullet, so that 
a particular series of events results from that 
previous series called the flight of the stone. 
A similar view of successive existences seems 
to satisfy some minds, while others insist upon 
a definite connection by memory between one 
life and the next. 

This connection, however, may be extensive 
or slight, as we choose to regard it, so that no 
clear distinction can be drawn between the 
two theories just mentioned. Believers in the 
transmigration of souls are usually content 
with very little, if any, remembrance of former 
lives, but often claim to know something of 
them. Thus Pythagoras is said to have as- 
serted his possession of some recollection of the 



ESSAYS 85 

deeds of Euphorbus, including, probably, the 
discreditable share of that warrior in the death 
of Patroclus, by which alone the epic world 
is acquainted with him. Most people, in con- 
templating a future life, require for the pre- 
servation of personal identity a more complete 
retention of their connection with the past, 
and some insist upon a memory much more 
complete and minute than that which they 
have in their present existence. 

If a man feels, of course without daring to 
assert, that he is himself the really important 
feature of the universe, and that everything 
else depends on his preservation, he will natu- 
rally also feel it highly necessary that his life 
should be maintained. But if, not merely in 
words, but in actual feeling, he holds the 
existence of other human beings to be as real 
as his own, it becomes of comparatively little 
moment to him whether what is to happen in 
a remote future concerns him personally or 
any of his neighbors. The immediate future, 
certainly, about which there is no time for re- 
flection, must always present itself to him as 
his own affair; the constitution of nature has 
sufficiently provided for that, as it has also 
provided for our tendency to consider this 



86 ESSxiYS 

immediate future, for action in which we must 
now prepare, as more important than the past. 
But the case is altered as soon as time is al- 
lowed for the operation of reason. If the past 
has been of real importance, we may say with 
Goethe's Egmont,"Ich hore auf zu leben; aber 
ich habe gelebt." In any case, the present and 
visible welfare or misfortune of a friend affects 
the ordinary man more powerfully than the 
possibility, or even the expectation, of a simi- 
lar experience of his own at any considerable 
interval of time. 

The future extinction of the entire human 
race is also regarded without abhorrence by 
any one who is fully persuaded of the prob- 
ability that the universe will still go on very 
well without us, even if no other races, some 
of them, at least, more fortunate than ours, 
should then be in existence in some portion 
of space. The local existence of the mind was 
noticed in my sixteenth essay; we do not now, 
either as individuals or as a race, live every- 
where; and if we accept this fact with com- 
posure, we have no good reason for finding 
anything formidable in the thought that we 
may not always exist, whatever we may be- 
lieve upon the subject. The feeling that we 



ESSAYS 87 

have not always existed ; that we were nowhere 
in the present when that present included the 
reign of David or of Cyrus, is perhaps as dis- 
agreeable, when distinctly brought before the 
mind, as the anticipation of a time when, as 
Dante 1 says, we shall be the ancients ourselves. 
But if disagreeable to the instinct, neither feel- 
ing survives the examination of reason. 

XXVIII 

Having already so nearly approached the 
subject of religion, we shall naturally be led to 
consider it more directly. How to do so with 
due regard to the feelings of devout men, which 
deserve the highest respect and the most sin- 
cere appreciation, is always a difficult problem 
to those in whom such feelings are much less 
acute, if not wholly wanting. To admit their 
absence is not to condemn their presence in 
other minds, or to endeavor to destroy them 
where they exist; and certainly no attempt of 
that kind is here intended. 

In believing in the existence of beings su- 
perior to themselves, men have always been 
unable to imagine these beings except as hu- 
man in general character and attributes. No- 

1 Paradiso, xvii, 120. 



88 ESSAYS 

thing absolutely foreign to humanity can be 
conceived by a human mind; and it is even 
difficult for such a mind, as already noticed, 
to imagine itself or anything like it separated 
from the body which here always contains it. 
Accordingly, we find a belief in incarnations 
generally attending a belief in deities; and, in 
like manner, the doctrine of a future life for 
men themselves has been very widely held to 
include a reconstructed body as well as an 
imperishable spirit. 

We will not stop to consider those forms 
of religion which concern themselves mainly 
with beings as malevolent as they are power- 
ful, whose ill-will must be averted, if possible, 
by prescribed ceremonies. Let us rather pro- 
ceed at once to the most lofty conception which 
men have been able to form of an omnipotent 
and omnipresent Deity, who loves and pro- 
tects his creatures, and yet permits them to 
be afflicted by evils for the existence of which 
no satisfactory explanation has been imparted 
to them. 

This omnipotent Creator cannot be at once 
human and humane, according to the ordinary 
use of language; and nothing can be gained by 
adopting a form of words the meaning of which 



ESSAYS 89 

has been perverted. One method of account- 
ing for the existence of what we consider evil 
has been to question the absolute omnipotence 
of the Deity, and to suppose an impersonal 
Fate as in supreme control; a second method 
has been to exalt the importance in the uni- 
verse of human intentions, and to assert that 
freedom of choice must imply error and evil 
results in some cases at least; but even when 
this explanation is adopted, it must be felt 
that such a scheme, like the first, involves a 
limitation of omnipotence. A third idea, that 
all beings but one must be imperfect, has also 
been regarded as an explanation of the exist- 
ence of evil; but imperfection, of knowledge 
for instance, is not necessarily evil in the cus- 
tomary sense of the word. 

Agnosticism, as it has been called in recent 
times, avoids this difficulty by denying the 
possibility of a human conception of what is 
necessarily superhuman. In this view, omni- 
potence remains unimpaired, but little op- 
portunity is left for the exercise of love and 
worship. A partial escape from this result is 
afforded by the possibility that Infinity may 
include finite qualities, and that, as man's phys- 
ical constitution has something in common 



90 ESSAYS 

with that of the lowest animals, so his mental 
constitution may be distantly related to some 
part, though not the supremely controlling 
part, of a Mind the more important operations 
of which he is wholly incompetent to conceive. 
But it may be doubted whether this theory 
differs materially from the older distinction 
between Fate and a Deity of human nature, 
not absolutely omnipotent. 

Belief in any Deity must depend mainly 
upon intuition. As a natural and unavoid- 
able part of many minds, it occupies an im- 
pregnable position. When men attempt to 
support it by argument, they are likely to suc- 
ceed only in undermining it. The argument 
from design, once more popular than at pre- 
sent, is unsatisfactory because design is the 
attribute of an imperfect creature, controlled 
by laws of nature to which he must adjust his 
plans. There is something undignified in the 
idea of puzzles with ingenious solutions con- 
trived by Omnipotence for the purpose of im- 
pressing natural religion upon mankind; and 
even this purpose, when thus indirectly carried 
out, seems unfit to be attributed to a Creator. 
Teleology, indeed, became more respectable 
than before when the gradual adjustment of 



ESSAYS 91 

everything to the circumstances in which it is 
placed became a generally accepted idea. Even 
now, however, it still appears to many of us 
unsatisfactory as a proof of the divine govern- 
ment of the world, however interesting as a 
theory of the possible form of that government. 
The argument for the existence of a Deity 
with human attributes which is founded upon 
the sense of duty has certainly more dignity 
than that based upon design; but it requires a 
different conception of the moral law than that 
considered preferable in my twentieth essay. 

XXIX 

Assuming the existence of a Deity, are we 
to expect the appearance of miracles and special 
providences ? This expectation has been re- 
garded in my twenty-fifth essay as a requisite 
for the reception of testimony concerning such 
events. The answer to our question depends 
upon our conception of the divine character 
and attributes. Those who insist most strongly 
upon an analogy between the divine nature 
and that of humanity will presumably be the 
readiest to believe in a Providence reveal- 
ing itself by special interpositions in human 
affairs; others, with a greater faith in the 



92 ESSAYS 

omnipotence and infinity than in the human 
nature of their Deity, will prefer to regard the 
general course of events, uninterrupted by any 
such irregularities, as the true mark of divine 
action. They will consider miracles, if they 
admit their occurrence, rather as events to be 
explained by revelation than as evidence in 
its favor. Special providences they will con- 
sider unworthy of the grandeur with which 
their feelings invest the Supreme Being. To 
what extremes the opposite view may carry 
us is apparent in Newman's conception of di- 
rect divine agency in freezing the fingers of 
thousands of unfortunate conscripts, exposed 
much against their own will to the rigor of a 
Russian winter, in order that the excommu- 
nication of Napoleon might take effect in a 
manner suggested in scorn by Napoleon him- 
self. 1 

An ancient protest against such a view of 
Providence is embodied in the book of Job. 
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, for maintaining 
the doctrine of special providences in an ex- 
treme form, are adjudged guilty of impiety, 
while Elihu is dismissed without blame, but 
apparently with contempt, not for an unworthy 

1 Grammar of Assent, p. 417. 



ESSAYS 93 

conception of his Maker, but for attempting 
to justify the doings of the Almighty, who needs 
no human defence or approval, and to whose 
government no human standard of morality 
is to be applied. St. Paul, in his simile of the 
potter, afterwards took much the same atti- 
tude. Although, in this passage, he seems to 
strain the meaning of Hosea in order to make 
a plea for the preference of some Gentiles to 
some Jews, he would perhaps hardly have im- 
agined that in later times his commentators 
would strain his expressions to support extreme 
Calvinistic doctrines. 

Men of an agnostic temperament are inclined 
to insist still more strongly upon the unlike- 
ness of the Infinite to any finite creature. To 
them, the exaltation of humanity to omnipo- 
tence, however sublime an idea, appears pre- 
sumptuous. They will readily admit that such 
beings as men are not the most important 
part of the universe, and will add that they 
are too unimportant to have the least compre- 
hension of what is beyond them. An earth- 
worm, presumably, has no notion whatever of 
men, with whom he is brought into relation 
only by what men, under analogous circum- 
stances, might call convulsions of nature. Now 



94 ESSAYS 

there may be a difference of opinion as to 
whether there is an actually infinite distinc- 
tion between the consciousness of the man and 
that of the worm. If there is, the case may be 
compared to that of the distinction between a 
Deity and man; if not, this last distinction is 
infinitely the greater. It is rather by additional 
assertion than by denial that the agnostic 
differs from the theist. 

It is generally admitted that evidence for 
a revelation of any kind demands for its re- 
ception some previous foundation in natural 
religion. The consideration of revealed truth 
must therefore be left to those in whose minds 
such a foundation exists. Butler, in his cele- 
brated Analogy, attempted to show that there 
was no objection to the acceptance of a revela- 
tion which might not equally be urged against 
simple Deism; but his success has often been 
thought to have consisted rather in disprov- 
ing Deism than in opening the way for reve- 
lation. 

XXX 

In general, and independently of any refer- 
ence to revelation, we may regard possible 
philosophic opinions as divided into three prin- 



ESSAYS 95 

cipal classes. We have, first, the condition of 
universal doubt, which, as Montaigne 1 cleverly 
says, is better expressed by an interrogation 
than by an assertion. Secondly, there may be 
a belief in the reality of events, including the 
unknown events of the external world, in which 
are again included the mental operations of 
external minds; while, combined with this be- 
lief, there may be a distrust of explanatory 
hypotheses, and a disposition to acquiesce in 
ignorance of all beyond a limited range of 
knowledge. Thirdly, and perhaps most fre- 
quently, we have the more enthusiastic tem- 
per, with a faith in things not seen, and some- 
times with a disbelief of things seen, as for 
example the negation of the real existence of 
material objects, while at the same time the 
reality of other minds may be vigorously as- 
serted. No argument can be employed to main- 
tain the position occupied by either of these 
classes, or to attack that held by another; for 
no common ground from which to set out upon 
such a discussion is available. 

Men of the third class are frequently disposed 
to employ ordinary words in new senses, as for 
example by denying pain to be an evil, with 

1 Essais, Tome II, chap, xii (p. 237). 



96 ESSAYS 

some of the ancients, or calling it a delusion, 
with some of the moderns; or by insisting on 
the benevolence of the government of the uni- 
verse, although its results are not those of 
benevolence in the ordinary meaning of the 
word. If such expedients actually pacify and 
gratify the minds of those who resort to them, 
they are certainly justified by their results; 
but many men find^ them ineffectual, and are 
apt to regard them as childish. These men are 
mostly of the second type; in old times, they 
might often call themselves Epicureans. Al- 
though that name acquired a bad reputation 
in a later age, there is still no reason for dis- 
claiming it at the present day, when employed 
in its proper sense. The true doctrines of Epi- 
curus, so far as I can judge, might easily have 
led in the course of time to a philosophic sys- 
tem agnostic in theology, utilitarian in morals, 
and positive in science, if we use this last 
term to denote a disposition to study trains 
of events rather than permanent substances. 
Epicurus himself probably had little or no ap- 
preciation of the distinction between explana- 
tory and exploratory hypotheses, or of the 
unlimited possibilities of gratification afforded 
by the latter. But even in his alleged rejection 



ESSAYS 97 

of physical science as futile, since in his opin- 
ion things were as they appeared to be, he was 
really insisting on the importance of pheno- 
mena, and to that extent was nearer the atti- 
tude of many modern men of science than were 
his more fanciful opponents. It should be 
needless to add that the astronomers and other 
students of nature in ancient times, when they 
inquired into trains of events instead of into 
the substances supposed to underlie them, 
really pursued the same methods of research 
which prevail among their present successors. 
They did not have to wait for any Bacon to 
show them how to reason inductively, or how 
to verify an interesting supposition. 

In intolerant times, we hear little of Epi- 
cureans, since there is nothing in their prin- 
ciples which urges them to martyrdom or 
to proselytism; but under whatever name, or 
without any, they have probably always been 
fairly numerous. So they are, I suppose, at 
the present day, though they may be afraid 
of the old name of their sect. Yet many of us 
are still ready to join with Lucretius 1 in re- 
spect for the memory of the man who was fore- 
most in defiance of traditional prejudices, and 

1 De Rerum Natura, i, 62. 



98 ESSAYS 

led the way to a view of nature controlled by 
reason, and undistorted either by the embel- 
lishments of fancy or by the aggravations of 
superstition. 



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